How to create time windows given start and stop indices

I have 2 vectors of indices: 1 for start times and 1 for end times:

>> size(trainStarts)

ans =

    20     1

>> size(trainEnds)

ans =

    20     1

Is there a way to, without using loops, that I can create a new variable representing windows that would be like trainStarts(1) : trainEnds(1), trainStarts(2) : trainEnds(2) and so on?

Answer 1

[Voss]

Here's one way:

trainStarts = [2 10 15];
trainEnds = [6 12 21];

result = arrayfun(@(x,y)x:y,trainStarts,trainEnds,'UniformOutput',false)

result = 1×3 cell array
    {[2 3 4 5 6]}    {[10 11 12]}    {[15 16 17 18 19 20 21]}

Answer 2

[Image Analyst]

Yes, but why? What's wrong with having them in separate arrays.

for k = 1 : length(trainStarts)
    thisRange = trainStarts(k) : trainEnds(k);
    % Now do something with thisRange.
end

If you want to store/keep all the ranges separately you need to put them into cells because each range might be a different number of elements.

for k = 1 : length(trainStarts)
    thisRange{k} = trainStarts(k) : trainEnds(k);
    % Now do something with thisRange.
end

If you don't know what a cell array is see the FAQ:

https://matlab.fandom.com/wiki/FAQ#What_is_a_cell_array?

[Anas Khan]

Thanks, yeah, I may not need to keep the ranges. I was just trying to keep the code as clean as possible for downstream analysis.

[Image Analyst]

Then use my first snippet rather than my second snippet or the answer you Accepted. No sense storing stuff you don't need to store.